Think Volume for Size

Sometimes people in the gym get so caught up in trying to put more weight on the bar they forget about one of the longest known strategies to pack on the hypertrophy, and that’s high volume training.

The problem with heavy weights is your muscles will reach absolute failure before they can receive the same amount of stimulation they could from a lower weight, high volume routine.

While these heavy weights are ideal for training the central nervous system to adapt to heavier loads and activate  more muscle fibers in a single repetition, it may not be as good for the completeness of stimulation that leads to muscular growth and hypertrophy.

Let’s say you’re an average, healthy, gym-going male and your 5 rep barbell curl max is about 80 lb.s, that’s with minimal back sway, strict form.

You can probably do 3 sets of your 5 rep max before your arms are pretty well done lifting that weight for the day.

But if you lowered your weight to about 65, you could lift it maybe 12 times.

What I want you to do is find the weight you could lift exactly 12 times and instead I want you to do 5 reps with it, then rest for 30 seconds, and repeat 5 times.

So for our theoretical lifter here:

65 lb.s x5

30 second rest

x5

30 second rest

x5

30 second rest

x 5

Now they’re just lifted 65 lb.s 25 times over the course of a few minutes which is a cumulative 1625 lb.s of load.

Whereas if they lifted their 5rm of 80 lb.s 15 times in the same time span you’d be looking at 1200 lb.s of total load.

Already you can see where a lower weight can start to add up.

Now once you’re finished with your FINAL set of five, I want you to immediately grab a bar that’s 10 lb.s lighter, or if you’re using dumbbells, 5 lb.s lighter on each side. Do 5 more reps. Drop the weight another 5 lbs and repeat.

If you absolutely have to take a break, do so, but continue this until you can’t even lift the 5 lb dumbbells then call your biceps done for the day.